


Counterfeit

by Phantom_Apple



Category: Mystic Messenger (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Mental Health Issues, Kidnapping, MC is an OC, Unspecified Route (Another Story), made my own bad end ig
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-01
Updated: 2019-12-01
Packaged: 2021-02-26 22:20:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21636310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phantom_Apple/pseuds/Phantom_Apple
Summary: Because, really; what had she expected, allowing a stranger to take her into the mountains and keep her in a mansion in the middle of nowhere?
Comments: 8
Kudos: 23





	Counterfeit

**Author's Note:**

> I was locked in my room for a while and bored, since I left my phone in the fruit bowl and guests were over, and I've also started up an Another Story route to see where I end up (I haven't done Unknown's route yet). So I thought I might as well write something in my free time while I waited for my brother to deliver my phone to me.
> 
> He didn't end up delivering it until after the guests left.
> 
> I'm still focused on my other stories, this was just to let out some stress and write something in a particular mood that I can't write in my other stories. Note, since I basically made this whole scenario up, there's stuff that probably doesn't fit with later days. Andd that's on purpose. Sure, I know that MC in the game doesn't know much of anything about what's going on ... but what's the fun of that? I left the date and route ambiguous after all.

The halls were screaming, the echoes of the believers reigning in tandem with the chaos right outside her reach. She’d pressed the dresser up against the door and locked it, and planted her back firmly against the wood, but there was no delaying the inevitable. Sure, she was killing time, but she knew her time was coming. Unknown—Ray—whoever he might be was coming for her, and she could do nothing more than wait.

_ “Oho! A call from the lady herself?”  _ Seven said, as soon as he picked up, and she squeezed her eyes shut as a tremor ran across her shoulders.  _ “I’m a busy guy, you know; I can’t take all of your calls! But I think I can make an exception this time.” _

How had she ever believed these were AIs? True, that had lasted a grand total of maybe two days, the second of which had been spent with a heavy dousing of skepticism, but this went beyond her usual brand of naivety. The fact that she’d even allowed a stranger to take her to the mountains and keep her in a cultists’ hideout was crazy enough—and yet here she was, on the other end of a massacre, and she only had herself to blame.

“Luciel,” she said, her voice strikingly calm, and she wondered if he could hear the screaming that she could. She had her own demons, but she was fairly sure that it was not a hallucination this time. “I’m—I’m so sorry.”

_ “Sorry?”  _ He repeated, the light and playful tone draining from his voice in an instant.  _ “What are you talking about?” _

Breathe in. Hold. Release. Repeat. That was all she could do in this situation, wasn’t it? Her foolishness and desperation to escape her ghosts and demons had lead her straight down the path to hell, and there was no escape in sight.

“I lied to you. I—lied to the entire RFA.” She knew that Ray had been tapping her phone calls; she knew the app he gave her was bugged; she knew that he’d installed a concoction of worms and viruses’ onto her phone. Her location was no secret and it never really had been. Her attempt to run had been thwarted so easily, it was almost comical that she didn’t immediately put it all together. How many little clues had she looked past, in hopes that the paranoia she felt was simply an off-brand version of what she usually felt? “I lied … and I’m sorry.”

The sounds were closer now, and she crawled to her feet and abandoned her useless attempt to blockade the door to instead retreat to the window. It was dark out, nearly midnight, according to the clock. Her hand scrambled for the lock, skin sliding uselessly against the glass, and she hissed in pain when her knuckles cracked up against the window, irritating her stiff and cold joints. “Did you know I’m missing?”

_ “Missing? What do you mean?” _

“I mean—” her knuckles cracked again, “—I’m missing. A report was filed last week, in Chuncheon.  _ Dammit!”  _ She snapped, when her fingers once again failed to snap open the hatch. “Why won’t you just—open already!” 

The impact of her palm on glass left her entire arm throbbing, and although Seven talked on the other end of the phone she could barely focus on his words. Her heart was hammering in her chest and the hands of her ghosts were resting on her arms, her back, her shoulders; shoving her down and to the floor no matter how hard she fought against it. Their grip was too strong, and she was too weak; her knees hit the wood and her hand slid down against plaster until the rough wall felt imprinted on her skin. 

_ “Minjung? It’s—listen, can you just calm down? What are you talking about?”  _ She stood on shaking feet, breathing in deeply and forcing her head calm as she began to pry the window lock open once more, ignoring the weight of hands on her shoulders and scrunched up around her neck.  _ “Are you saying you were kidnapped?” _

“That’s not me,” she said, with a huff, when she finally popped open the lock. She shoved the window open, feeling the cold and frigid air against her skin; it bit and nipped at her skin, leaving painful imprints in its wake, and she spared a look over her shoulder when she heard someone try the doorknob. “He told me—he said to use that name. But it’s not me.” 

Her bedroom was on the second floor, but there were bushes underneath her window; it was better than nothing, but still not ideal. She swung her legs over the edge, grasping the windowsill tightly as a shaking, panicked cry broke from her throat. “I’m—I-I’m Seongja, I’m twenty-one, and I lived with my adoptive parents and younger brother in Chuncheon before I was brought here.” Her heels slid up against the concrete wall, struggling to gain traction against the cold stone, but she had no time to look for shoes in the wardrobe she’d shoved up against the door. “I was in—” Ray yelled at her, but his voice was distorted—too dark to be him. Except, there were a lot of things she could apply that logic to, now. Her ghosts had followed her to the mountains, and now they were going to drag her down with the entire cult as punishment for her foolishness. “He messaged me and picked me up from downtown Chuncheon; Myeongdong street. We drove for—p-probably, an hour. I’m in the mountains.” The footsteps were moving away from the door—she had to move quickly. There wasn’t much time to waste. “Sorry—I … can’t do anything else. I’m sorry for lying, I-I’m sorry for invading your chatroom. I’m sorry.”

Seven said something, but she hung up before he could finish and hurled the phone across the room, hearing it shatter against the wall. There was a sickening crunch that echoed in her head, doused in satisfaction and pride, before she shook it away and stored it with the rest of the thoughts she dared not listen to.

_ Give up,  _ her father hissed in her ear, tugging her back into the room. She yanked away.  _ You’re never leaving. _

“Go home,” she spat back before plunging herself out of the windows, leaving her ghosts staring after her as she scrambled to her feet and ran.

**Author's Note:**

> o7


End file.
